This also meant that £1.4 billion of its £2 billion operating budget had been secured by the end of the financial year.

Income from tickets, which go on sale in March and will be among the most expensive in British sporting history, will be the next big financial milestone. Organisers need to raise 25 per cent of revenue from ticket sales.

There are 8.8 million tickets for the Olympics, 75 per cent of which can be bought by the public, with prices ranging from £20 to £2,012 for a top priced seat at the opening ceremony.

Seats at the closing ceremony will cost £1,500, while the most expensive sport will be the athletics, to be held at the new 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium.

A coveted ticket to the men’s 100m final will cost as much as £725 – the equivalent of £76 a second based on Usain Bolt’s world record.

The prices – which exclude corporate tickets – easily exceed those charged for the finals of the FA Cup, Wimbledon tennis and Premier League football matches.

However, games organiser Locog insisted taxpayers had not been priced out of the event they had funded and said 90 per cent of tickets would cost £100 or less.